The present invention relates generally to safety razors. The term "safety razors" is used here to identify such razors which are widely utilized for personal use as opposed to barber razors and as opposed to electrical shaving razors. The present invention deals both with such safety razors which are completely disposable after use together with their handle and also to such razors in which a blade holding cartridge is disposable and the handle can be reused.
Safety razors are widely known and used for shaving. A known safety razor is provided with at least one blade whose shaving action strictly corresponds to the direction of movement of the safety razor. When the blade is pressed against a surface to be shaven the safety razor moves in respective direction along this surface, the blade cuts the hairs by a cutting component acting only in the direction of movement of safety razor.
In the application Ser. No. 936,705 the construction was proposed in which a rotary element was arranged to rotate in response to contact with a surface to be shaven during shaving and connected with a head element arranged to carry the blade, so that when the user moves the handle element and therefore the head element in a predetermined direction during shaving, the head element and therefore the blade is displaced also in a direction which is transverse to the direction of movement of the head element. As a result of this, in addition to a component which acts in direction of movement of the safety razor, also a component which extends transversely to the first component is produced, and therefore the cutting action of the blade is improved. In the construction disclosed in the above specified patent application there is a danger that when a surface to be shaven is very smooth and clean, the friction between this surface and the rotary element is very low and the rotary element stops rotating so that no longer the transverse component is imparted to the blade.